CMT Blog: Molly Ringwald

I am about to turn 33, but don’t worry, this is not one of those “What does it all mean” blog entries. Instead, it’s about how you can still be a fan of live music, no matter how old you are.

Earlier this month I went to see a musician named Cary Brothers. (It’s one guy. His last name is Brothers.) He’s originally from Nashville, but he tours a lot, so he doesn’t play here much. Like a lot of dreamy-voiced singer-songwriters, he’s been getting a boost from TV, including Scrubs, Smallville, Bones and ER. “The Last One” and “Honestly” have been featured on Grey’s Anatomy and “Blue Eyes” landed a plum slot on the Grammy-nominated soundtrack from Garden State.

When I was in my 20s, I could go to about any club show in town, run into a dozen friends and stay out all night. Now I’m the older guy leaning against the wall, and sometimes I don’t know anybody else in the room. That’s all right. Every generation should be curious about finding its own bands and musicians. At one point in Cary’s show, he was gushing about Molly Ringwald, and especially Sixteen Candles. Then he asked the crowd, “Have you ever seen Sixteen Candles?” What kind of question is that?! Oh wait. Yeah, that 10-year gap. These kids might actually be thinking, “Molly who?” The reason Cary asked in the first place was because his new single is a remake of “If You Were Here,” the Thompson Twins song that plays over the closing credits, and it’s a pretty cool rendition too.

On a more serious note, I attended a Save Darfur rally at a Nashville high school a few weeks ago. The march began at Vanderbilt, with Big Kenny and a torch led about a hundred marchers toward the school. About 90 percent were college-aged. I was proud of them for taking a stand, because as you get older, it’s so easy to lose that sense of crusading to make the world a better place. At the rally, a group of Sudanese refugees opened the ceremony with a song. (I’ve been told that Nashville has about 6,000 Sudanese.) The college kids were into the rhythms, and their music is something I never would have heard otherwise. After learning more about the atrocities in Darfur, there are so many worse things than getting one year older.